It’s amazing what you can get for free in the neighborhood. My wife, with her bargain radar always dialed up to “Maximum Intensity”, spotted a free water play table in someone’s yard recently. At least I hope it was labeled as free and not just someone’s water table that’s now in OUR yard. After recent rains, the table has filled up nicely and this weekend it was warm and sunny, perfect to bring Number Two and Child Harbat out in the yard for some play time. Nothing says fun like crawling in the dirt and splashing in a pool of water, as pigs and little children know well. Trying to cast one eye across the yard on Number Two while I watered the plants, I noticed him using a little plastic scooper to drink water from the play table. My mind replayed an image from about fifteen minutes earlier: a mockingbird taking a bath in that same water table. Sigh. Well, it was just one sip and it’s clean rainwater. CH was playing with the boy and laughing, a perfect montage of innocent child’s play.
CH: “Hey, Babbo, there are bugs playing in the water! Hee hee!”
At this point I rush over as I see Number Two guzzling down another cup full of water like a frat boy on a dare.
[Me, trying to sound calm]: “Oh, can you show me these bugs?”
CH pointed at a pair of grubs wriggling along the bottom of the water table. Then I noticed another half dozen more. Number Two looks up at me and smiles, water pouring from his mouth.
Me: “Aaaaand we’re done here.”
Since I’m such a fantastic parent, I dumped out the water table and refilled it with fresh water from the hose. There, that should counteract the grubby bird bath water already ingested, right? Kind of like taking the matches from the child after he burns down the house.
So, anyone for some fresh water? I’ve got tons ready to bottle from various rain-filled insect-ridden catch basins scattered around our property. Don’t worry about the black stuff and squiggly stuff in it, that just means it’s “real”, it’s “artisanal”, and it has “character”, AKA listeria. Yum!
Writer, architect, father, husband.
Yum! Yum! Giardia anyone :-). He’s fine!